Biblical Scholars of the World Unite!

Biblical Scholars of the World Unite

By
James Crossley

Department of Biblical
Studies
University of Sheffield
April 2010

This is not a joke: what
do Hector Avalos and William Lane Craig have in common? The study of
the Bible! It may be that Avalos wants to bring about the end of that
which is deemed a cultural cancer but he still recognizes that to do
this he must study this collection and his argument clearly assumes
the Bible as something deeply embedded in culture. Like most
university departments where the Bible is studied, my own department
has students from a range of backgrounds where believers and
non-believers will openly disagree, sometimes sharply. But they are
all committed to the study of the Bible as a culturally important
collection of texts and have defended such study with great vigor and
determination. As my colleagues often point out, even prominent
atheists bemoan a perceived biblical illiteracy. If you don’t
know your Bible and biblical interpretation you are not going to
understand some of the strange things human beings do and you are not
going to get far analyzing Michelangelo, Emily Dickinson, Caravaggio,
Lars von Trier, Spenser, Tolstoy, Milton, Philip Pullman, Tolstoy,
T.S. Eliot, Dan Brown, Samuel Beckett, Elizabeth Jennings, Mel
Gibson, Johnny Cash, Toni Morrison, William Blake...

There
is a basic argument which ought to be used
but only fairly: the Bible is very important and lots of people hold
part or all of it as their sacred text. The implied criticism: it is
probably best not to use this argument and then do (say) some
standard traditional historical exegetical work with only a token use
of the high rhetoric of "relevance." This is not to
criticize some of the more traditional historical critical work; on
the contrary, the argument, when used in such instances, needs to be
sharpened. Traditional historical criticism needs to be vigorously
defended in a way that will show why it is "relevant"
because, alas, arguments about critical thinking being civilized
don’t work with the not-so-civilized. In terms of the arts and
humanities, historical questions concerning ancient Israel, the
Pentateuch, the historical Jesus, and Christian origins, have been
massive issues in the history of ideas with significant cultural
ramifications, and negative ones for some of those poor souls who
pioneered historical critical approaches. Moreover, the
biblical texts were written, composed and canonized over periods of
formative world history, interacting with the major empires. The
"religion" of Paul and John of Patmos even became
the Roman Empire!

And this leads us to reception. Arguably it is the
study of the reception, use, and influence of the Bible and biblical
texts which has the greatest claim to "relevance." I do not
need to remind readers (but readers may need to remind others) that
the Bible and biblical texts have been used to support countless
wars, to oppose countless wars, to rationalize slavery, to overthrow
slavery, to justify imperialism, to resist imperialism, and all the
ambiguous positions somewhere in between. Biblical interpretation is
hardly a minor player in major historical changes: simply think of
the Reformation and the English Civil War. Other disciplines may
colonize famous intellectual figures such as Aquinas and
Kierkegaard but were they not interpreters of the
Bible too, or even primarily? All of this raises further questions:
why is it that so many people are influenced by this collection of
texts and believe some very strange things contained therein and why
do leaders of the most powerful nation on earth feel the need to
utilize the Bible in their rhetoric? Such questions are
tackled by biblical scholars and such questions should show clearly
enough that the Bible is deeply embedded and resonates or echoes in
so many cultural and historical contexts. To ignore such a profoundly
important collection on the basis of presumed irrelevance means few
disciplines in the humanities should be allowed to survive, if that
dubious logic were to be applied consistently.

There is one discipline which, rightly or wrongly,
gets treated as a sister discipline of biblical studies: theology.
Personally, I would advocate something along the lines of a genuinely
radical "anything goes" policy on subjects studied but I
know people in universities are not happy with the luxury of a
protected place for professional confessional theology in any
economic times, let alone these present ones. Certainly, one aspect
of theology can be defended as above: theology has been important in
the history of ideas. When we talk about questions of the deification
of Jesus, the origins of the Pentateuch, and so on, we are, on one
level, studying the history of theological ideas which are of no more
or less obvious importance than any other area of study, at least by
the general assumptions of humanities departments. But we all know
theology is not simply about historical reconstruction or the like.
For many, theology is confessional with a tradition guiding/giving
the answers and, in the case of the faintly totalitarian Radical
Orthodoxy, maybe a return to medieval Christianity for us all. I
suspect that this sort of confessionalism, rightly or wrongly, could
face difficulties in defending itself as an approach in universities.

Except… Like historical critical
approaches, theology can still bring in money and attract students. A
less crass and more intellectual case has, however, come from an
unexpected source: atheist philosophers. Alain Badiou, Slavoj
Žižek, and others have turned to
Christian theology, most notably the influence of Paul, to highlight
what is deemed the revolutionary heart of western thought, Marxism
before Marx if you like. This could simply be another case of
studying the importance of the history of ideas and it is, to some
extent. But things are not so red and white, to steal a phrase
recently used of the late British politician Michael Foot. When Terry
Eagleton and Slavoj Žižek get
into bed with confessional theologians like Herbert McCabe and John
Milbank, then it is clear that confessional theology really does have
some unlikely advocates.

Back to biblical studies and this obvious
question: we all know why our subject matters so isn’t all the
above just preaching to the converted? Yes and no. The humanities
will no doubt be the first target within universities in times of
recession and cuts, and attention has already turned to those
subjects deemed "irrelevant." Unfortunately, the critical
study of the Bible can be misunderstood as academics at prayer,
though in my own institution, at least, I think there is a growing
recognition of what the critical and interdisciplinary understanding
of the Bible offers – this is a battle which can be won. If we
really care about the critical study of the Bible as an academic
discipline, then we need to recognize that the present economic
situation is hardly going to be favorable for the humanities in
universities and we need to realize (as many do) that knives will be
sharpened for areas relating to biblical studies. While I think this
very ethos is wrong, it can be immediately challenged – and
challenged effectively – by showing that the critical study of
the Bible is at the heart of the humanities. Indeed, some of the ways
I sketched above can show why such humanistic study is of utmost
cultural importance and why the humanities
are important (very similar arguments apply across the academic
board). It is no doubt the case that the whole structure of
universities needs to be radically rethought but in the meantime let
us not leave the future lacking in such a crucial discipline for
understanding human beings.

Comments (1)

Thanks so much for this James. W.L. Craig came to our campus two weeks ago, my students all urged me to go, probably thinking I might stand up in the question session and corner him. It was a ridiculous debate on the "Existence of God," so sophomoric I could not even sit there, I just left. It was what we all went through when we were 18 in college, in my case 40 years ago. What a joke. And hundreds of my "believing" students were there...History is our only solace...I keep coming back to this. My classes are filled, packed, with believers and unbelievers, whatever those categories mean, and I respect them all but we have to go to the TEXTS and see what is there, that is our only recourse, and I believe that enables us to come together somehow, over something truly important as well as interesting.

#1 - James D. Tabor - 04/13/2010 - 16:45

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